Second Shift tells the story of GM in Lansing, and how in the late 90’s, in the midst of changes in the auto industry, General Motors was ready to leave Lansing. In the face of what seemed like an inevitable decision, a team of government, business, labor, education and other community leaders came together in some pretty unlikely ways to convince GM to change their decision. While the old facilities did close, GM reinvested in the community instead of leaving.

“You can see such variety,” said fest fan Terry Terry. “You see fun things and stylish things. … I’m looking for (filmmakers) who have a fresh approach to visuals and storytelling.”

And this time, he’ll also have a film at the festival. Terry (head of local Message Makers) produced the “Second Shift” documentary. “It’s all about how Mayor (David) Hollister and different executives collaborated to keep GM in Lansing,” Woods said. “Everyone in the area loves it.”

“ELFF discovery: Mid-Michigan gets its close-up in 17th Annual East Lansing Film Festival”,Lansing City Pulse, 10/29/14

“(The Lansing area) is in the spotlight in this year’s festival more than in any other year,” said festival director Susan Woods. “It’s really quite extraordinary. It wasn’t planned this way, it just came together.”

The documentary “Second Shift: From Crisis to Collaboration,” produced by MessageMakers in Old Town, depicts the work of former Lansing Mayor David Hollister and a team of public and private entities who convinced General Motors to stay in Lansing when the automaker considered pulling up the stakes in the late ‘90s.

David and I [Ray] had a conversation about five years ago that we were going to write a book about it. It went from a book, to an ebook, to interviews uploaded to a website, finally to this documentary. We’ve been working on this for the last two and a half years.

“This is definitely our biggest year for local films,” said ELFF founder Susan Woods.

[…] none are more local than “Second Shift,” a documentary about Lansing saving itself.

That starts in 1996, amid economic troubles for General Motors and others. “GM came and said, ‘Hey, it’s a 100-year-old factory, we’re cutting back, we’re out of here,'” said Terry Terry, the “Shift” producer.

Instead, he said, people mobilized. “You have Dave Hollister and John Engler – not really close politically – working together.”

“It was one of those ‘we have some good news and some bad news to report to you,'” vividly recalls Hollister, who was serving as Lansing Mayor from 1993 to 2003, a time period during which he undertook several projects to benefit Lansing. “Yes, there was some good news to start out about the 100th year anniversary of Oldsmobile marked by a five year line of product (specifically the Alero model) for Lansing, but it was the ‘bad news’ — that when that five year cycle of product (1998-2003) ends in 2004 … there would be no more GM product to build in this town.

The memorable campaign involved concessions from the city and the United Auto Workers along with a collaborative, sometimes dramatic, approach to unite a diverse array of stakeholders. Some participants have called Lansing’s “Keep GM” effort one of the first serious efforts in regionalism. Ray Tadgerson was at the center of the effort. Ray, along with filmmakers Tom Lietz and Terry Terry, discuss their film project.